Photography

A picture is worth a thousand words. Photographs can be powerful, especially those that depict the humanity lost in a disaster. Some themes in these photographs include:

• Death: this disaster of immense proportions was known for the amount of damage it inflicted, and the death toll was absolutely staggering. To convey the horror of numbers, skulls and grotesque heaps of dead bodies are seen.
• Suffering: not only did many die, but even more suffered as the effects of radiation and burning lasted for decades after the incident. As the atomic bomb was a radical new method of warfare, its long term effects were unknown. However, we now know that they eventually lead to severe deformities and other health challenges in those who were exposed to the dangerously high levels of radiation. Even children who were born after the bombings experienced developmental challenges and health problems. This was conveyed through close up shots of scarred and deformed individuals.
• Damage: the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed, the ground charred, the infrastructure and buildings ruined. It took time to rebuild after the bombings, but the current state was captured through shots of the city in many different angles (from a birds eye view, from the ground, etc.)
• Atomic weaponry: many were obsessed with knowing more about the atomic bomb itself, and some of the most common photos from the bombings are of the mushroom cloud that erupted over the city. The atomic bomb is in a few photographs, and the crew of Enola Gay is also shown below.